Take a cursory look around most school districts, schools and classrooms to confirm what the experts tell us: Our student population is becoming more academically diverse with each passing year. There are increased categories of special education identification, a rapidly growing second language population, more students carrying the weight of…

Bruce Joyce has long been involved in efforts to develop collaborative professional inquiry. In this article, he looks back at some of those efforts in the hope that we can draw lessons from them and finally realize the vision that Mike Schmoker set forth in his February article. In the article featured on the cover of the February Kappan, Mike…

Stung by a negative accreditation review, Los Angeles City College established an administrative position and a planning process that is successfully creating a culture of continuous improvement. At the core of this success is a "plan-act-check" reinforcing systems loop that links planning, budgeting, and institutional research. (Contains 2…

Over the past decade, cross-functional quality improvement teams have been formed not only to reengineer work processes but also to enhance community and create incentives and recognition; they have moved the university from planning to action. (Contains 1 table.)

In 1983, a landmark event occurred in public education in the US: the National Commission on Excellence in Education published its now famous report, A Nation at Risk. The report was generally regarded as the catalyst for decades of public and political pressure for large-scale school improvement or reform. Here, Beach and Lindahl identify a…

In his February 2004 Kappan article, Mike Schmoker called into question the effectiveness of many of the major reform efforts of the past two decades. In particular he made the case that strategic planning efforts and whole-school reform efforts have been mostly ineffective because planning cycles are too long and implementation is too complex and…

The school-readiness of Hawai'i's children and the readiness of Hawai'i's schools for entering kindergarteners has been a topic of considerable thought and action in recent years. Indeed, Hawai'i's citizens have long made young children and their education a high priority. The first steps were taken as early as 1894 when the Samuel N. and Mary…

Shifts in networked technologies have removed the need to store information geographically close to students, staff, and faculty on college campuses. This shift has put libraries on the offense to remain vital to the campuses they serve. As the library of the future emerges, new models for decision making that place an emphasis on the teaching and…

Purpose: To identify the impeders of strategy implementation in the higher education (HE) sector of Iran. Design/methodology/approach: A structured questionnaire was distributed to the academic staff from Iranian Universities. The questionnaire consisted of closed and open questions. Data were gathered from the major universities in different…

This article discusses the strategic concepts for the development of Chinese education and human resources for the next 50 years. These concepts include: (a) Strategic Choice: Human Resources Are the Most Important Resource Development; (b) Strategic Targets: Realize the "Three Steps" of Education and the "Two Promotions" of…

This report summarizes the activities and findings of the external evaluation of the "Science: It's Elementary" (SIE) program during the period from July 2008 through June 2009. The SIE program is managed by ASSET Inc. and overseen by the Pennsylvania Department of Education. SIE is an initiative aimed at improving elementary science…

This 2009 Annual Joint Report of the State Board of Education and the Tennessee Higher Education Commission identifies four joint priorities and nine associated goals addressing areas of need in both student learning and educator development for the advancement of education in Tennessee. The joint priorities and initiatives focus on points of…

States need strong higher education systems, now more than ever. In the tumultuous, highly competitive 21st century economy, citizens and workers need knowledge, skills, and credentials in order to prosper. Yet many colleges and universities are falling short. To give all students the best possible postsecondary education, states must create…

The State of California's teaching corps does not reflect nearly the same level of cultural diversity, as does the student body that it serves. Multiple sources of evidence suggest that the quality and outcomes of the learning experience are compromised for many of the students enrolled in California schools due to persistent and significant…

From 1989 until 1998 the U.S. Department of Education administered the National Workplace Literacy Demonstration Program. During that period, over $130 million supported some 300 projects where adult education programs partnered with thousands of businesses, agencies, and organizations to provide work-based skills to employees. While only seven…